Homage to Chagdud Rinpoche This poem was written in the Trinity Alps of Northern California at Rigdzin Ling, the main center of Tibetan Lama Chagdud Tulku. It was my second time there. I had the yurt, a canvas covered, circular structure secluded in a meadow, all to myself. At night the moon cast spectacular beams through the plexiglass skylight, spiralling them around the room. On moonless nights the stars were brighter than I'd ever seen. Night was my favorite time. I sat at a makeshift desk, basking in the meager warmth of a little woodstove, brewing tea, reading texts, and writing by light of a kerosene lamp. The Buddha of Sawtooth Peak by Pema Gonpo the Sawtooth Peaks erupt from deep pine valleys squirming against the floating blue vibrant sky cast in shadow of glacial ice and snow grey rock reaching for the heavens stars are pinlights in distant galaxies pointed at the earth at the skylight of the yurt dartplayers hurling beams of light with a twitch a flick of the wrist 186,000 miles per second piercing this tinted bullseye an eyeball observatory through which I swim into aquamarine midnight sky silhouettes of darkness ridge and rising mountain a pulsing mass of fuzzy pine a surry with the fringe on top a geological freight train rising slowly steadily unstoppably from the bowels of the earth until bursting erupting from deep green valleys the Sawtooth Peaks holding up the afternoon early spring sky I sit alongside the path connecting yurt and house across the footbridge over the swirling stream then up the rock steps the steep path to the clearing little patches of blue peek through the clouds like babies fighting sleep a mosquito hovers a few inches from my forehead a bumblebee swings two tight buzzsaw haloes flies away returns twice each time 360 degrees the Buddha of Sawtooth Peak smiled upon me today I could barely see the haggard form steadfastly meditating for the benefit of all beings amongst the glaciated boulders of the Trinity Alps as wind whipped snow transformed the alpine desert into sandstorm fury the Buddha's eyes opened in a wide mouth grin to bow to the Sawtooth Peaks in anticipation of Maitreya the coming Buddha of enlightenment for all sentient beings I prostrated half a dozen times kissing the enlightened earth that blesses me with raindrops which have flowed unceasingly from person to air to cloud communion of molecules then back again and again uniting the three times connecting each thing to the Buddha connecting each thing to the Teaching an unbroken verbal lineage I stood with my eyes upon the distant snowy peaks feeling the strangest truest feeling that the Buddha of Sawtooth Peak had risen from the ice and snow and stood in the bitter wind to watch over my approach to ease my suffering by extending a hand to see me through to a place far beyond the Sawtooth Range perhaps a smaller mountain or a valley as a bodhisattva serving all sentient beings